


At the Pleasure of the Hotel de la Paix

by DiNovia



Category: Supergirl (TV 2015)
Genre: F/F, First Time, Sharing a Room, there's only one bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-25
Updated: 2016-12-25
Packaged: 2018-09-11 23:09:56
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,313
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9039869
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DiNovia/pseuds/DiNovia
Summary: A gift for kara-lesbihonest who asked for "Cat and Kara share a hotel room.  No established relationship."Merry Christmas!





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [kara-lesbihonest (mxfivespot)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mxfivespot/gifts).



It’s February in the midst of what the Swiss are quaintly calling a “cold snap” and there’s been a terrible mistake.  Cat Grant cannot quite believe her ears when the hotel manager explains—for the third time—that something has happened and the Mont-Blanc Suite has been accidentally double booked.  This is not something that happens at the Ritz-Carlton and certainly not the Ritz-Carlton in Geneva during the Geneva Climate Change Conference.

“I understand what you’re telling me,” she says sharply, repeating herself in perfect French for good measure.  “What I don’t understand is how something like this could have happened?”

The hotel manager is grey with anxiety and Cat sees a faint twitch begin in the corner of his left eye.  Clearly, he doesn’t understand it either and his dread and his sheer discomfort hang heavy over the reception desk like the low, snow-laden clouds outside.

“Madame, understand that we are investigating the error even now,” he says tightly, casting his baleful gaze at the desk personnel busy checking in other Ritz-Carlton guests around him, all of them suspects in the unacceptable lapse as far as he is concerned.  “We will discover the cause and make certain it will not happen again.  However, the investigation does not resolve the issue at hand, meaning, of course, where you will stay.”

Cat almost laughs.  “I’ll stay in the room which I booked,” she says icily.  “You’ll have to find accommodations for the interlopers.  My reservation was made first, you said.”

The twitch in the hotel manager’s left eye immediately increases in frequency.  “That is true, Madame, however, the other guest registered early this morning and has had possession of the room for three hours already.  I cannot simply remove her—it would be highly improper and would perhaps cause an international incident—”

Cat scoffs.  “Trust me when I say I can do more damage to your brand in one eighty character Tweet than whoever is in my room can do to you over the next year.”  She is, however, mildly intrigued.  “Who is it?”

The hotel manager trembles in his starched coat.  What he’s about to do is against everything he’s ever been taught but he hopes the American media mogul will understand the sheer scope of the issue once she knows the identity of the person in—as she put it— _her_ room.  He shoos two of his subordinates away and writes a short note on a blank card, which he slides across the black and gold marble.

“You understand I cannot say who is in the room, Madame, but perhaps this will make it clear….”

Cat, annoyed with the games being played, lifts the card, sees the name, and closes her eyes in defeat.  No, of course she won’t be asking the First Minister of Scotland to slum it in the nearest Best Western equivalent—especially when Nicola is set to give one of the most anticipated speeches at the Conference and is at least 30 percent of the whole reason Cat is here in the first place.

“I….”  She clears her throat and looks back at the hotel manager.  “I see your point,” she says.  “About the international incident,” she clarifies softly and acquiesces without further argument.

Kara, who has been lurking a few steps away, wide-eyed and praying to every deity she knows (and some she thinks she’s made up on the spot) that she isn’t responsible for this mix-up, clears her throat.  “My room isn’t affected, is it?” she asks the manager.  “Kara Danvers, CatCo Worldwide Media?  I have a lake view room—”  She juggles her bag and searches her coat pockets, looking for her reservation confirmation.  “—on the second floor—”

By the time she has the paper ready, the hotel manager has her reservation up on his discreet computer and he smiles—beams really—for the first time since the whole fiasco began.

“It is not, Mademoiselle,” he says.

“Then you can have my room, Miss Grant,” says Kara, looking for all the world like a determined marshmallow in her puffy white coat and her glasses and her frown.  “I’ll find another hotel—”

“You most certainly will not,” says Cat before she can stop herself, affronted by the very idea.  She convinces herself her offense is based upon business need and not the idea of Kara, innocent and alone in a strange city, staying in a creaky, dripping, crumbling Rococo Revival hotel in the seedier part of town, housing the only rooms likely still available (largely because they can be rented by the hour).  “I need you close, Kiera,” Cat explains, noting two pairs of eyes upon her, one disbelieving and one shrewd.  “Of what assistance can you be if you’re not immediately available when I need you?  I might as well have left you back in National City.”  Cat turns and pins the hotel manager with an arch look.  “We’ll share the room, thank you.”

“Yes, Madame,” he says, bowing with gratitude and relief.  He snaps for a bellman and one appears within seconds.  “Calixte will accompany you to your room.  And rest assured, Madame, your entire stay is at the pleasure of the Hotel de la Paix.  Welcome to Genève.”

“Hmm,” says Cat, eyebrows raised in consideration of that remark.  She turns and watches as Kara helps the hapless Calixte load their luggage onto the brass cart.  As the bellman heads across the lobby toward the lifts, Kara takes her place a step behind Cat, letting her boss lead the way.

“What did he mean by that?” she asks, leaning in close so as not be overheard.  “Our stay is at the pleasure of the hotel?”

“What that means, Kiera, is that the Ritz-Carlton knows how to right a wrong,” says Cat and she can’t help but be impressed a little by the gesture.  When Kara’s expression of confusion continues she clucks her tongue.  “It means our stay is free.  The room, our meals, whatever we want—within reason, of course—will be picked up by the hotel as a gesture of good will.  And as a means of protecting their brand.”  She smirks, thinking about the Tweet she could still send, and about the financial damage it could do.  She won’t send it, of course (Cat Grant is many things, but she is neither cruel nor ungrateful), but the thought entertains her for the duration of the elevator ride, which is good enough.

Once they are in the room and Calixte has been dispatched, a separate problem makes itself known.

Of course, there is only one bed.

\-----

Kara stares at the king-sized bed and wonders how she is going to convince Cat to let her find another room somewhere in town.  Because she is so not prepared for this.

Kara’s seen Cat’s palatial master suite at her penthouse on numerous occasions but only when she was there to fetch something Cat needed.  Never when Cat was there and never, ever when Cat was using it for its intended and intensely personal purpose. 

She knows they won’t be sharing the bed.  That’s a given.  No way could Cat Grant, CEO of CatCo Worldwide and reigning Queen of All Media, be expected to share a bed with _anyone_ , let alone Kara Danvers.  Cat’s fastidiousness and her germ phobia notwithstanding, Cat is…well… _Cat_.  And Kara is just her lowly assistant.

 _Her lowly, stuttering assistant who has a raging crush on her boss,_ she reminds herself gloomily.

“So,” says Cat airily, surveying the less-than-palatial accommodations somewhat suspiciously.  “Do you prefer the right side or the left?”

Kara blinks twice before attempting an answer because she’s not sure she’s heard Cat correctly.  Did Cat just ask her which side of the bed she prefers?  As if they might _share it?_

“Wh-what?” says Kara, not trusting her short-term recall at the moment, and definitely wanting the question repeated.

Cat rolls her eyes.  “Left or right, Kiera?  It isn’t a hard question.”

“Oh, n-no, Miss Grant, I—I couldn’t.”  Kara looks wildly around the small but well-appointed room, noticing right away that it’s small in only the way European hotels can be, which is to say, _very_.  “I’ll sleep on the—”

“If the next word out of your mouth is either _floor_ or _sofa_ , I will fire you this minute.”  Cat narrows her eyes at Kara’s glance toward the bathroom and adds, “And if I were you, I’d think very carefully about the word _bathtub_ because, one, you don’t know if there even is one beyond that door and, two, have you considered what arrangements we’ll need to make should nature call in the middle of the night?”

Cat smirks when Kara blanches and swallows carefully, unable to stutter out a response.  Cat can see the gears in Kara’s agile brain working overtime to solve this puzzle—to no avail—and she’s not surprised by the frisson of glee that zings through her, like the burn of ouzo tossed back in the middle of a hot Greek night.  For months now, Cat’s been playing a game she calls Confound Kiera, extracting a certain amount of perverse pleasure from the act of perplexing her erstwhile assistant.  She’s careful not to examine why.

“What’s the matter, Kiera?” asks Cat, her voice silken and too sweet.  “Am I the monster under your bed?”  She takes two steps toward her paralyzed assistant, leans in, and whispers, “Boo!”

Kara jumps as if struck and turns, but not before Cat sees the flash of pink in her cheeks. 

“Why don’t I set up your workspace for you, Miss Grant?” she asks, her voice higher than Cat has ever heard it.  In the next second, she’s grabbed Cat’s carry-on bag and is unloading its contents onto the room’s only desk, setting everything up exactly as Cat would herself.  

“Where will you work from?” Cat asks, eyeing Kara thoughtfully as she retrieves her makeup case and carries it into the bathroom.

“Will you fire me if I answer sofa to that question?” counters Kara, but her tone isn't snide or sarcastic.  She clearly thinks getting fired for uttering the word _sofa_ is a real possibility.

Cat regards the piece of furniture in question, noting its diminutive size and its fragile appearance. 

“Carry on, Kiera,” she says, waving her hand as she picks up her Prada bag and her sunglasses and heads toward the door.  “I’ll be back in an hour.”

\-----

The knock on the room door an hour later isn’t Cat.  Rather, it’s a gaggle of bellmen with clear orders to pay the room’s current occupant no mind as they swoop in to remove the two small, blue, tufted velvet chairs and the even smaller cocktail table that form the room’s advertised “seating area.”  They return moments later with a second desk, which they arrange in the now empty spot, and they move the desk she’s designated as Cat’s so it faces the new one in an intimate tête-à-tête.

Kara thinks they’re done as they leave but before she can close the door behind them, they swoop in again and place an adorably minuscule bistro set by the French doors overlooking the lake.  They leave the much-discussed sofa and its side-table as is.  Kara tries to tip them as they leave but the last bellman to leave, Calixte from earlier, demurs and shakes his head, murmuring “It is at the pleasure of the hotel, Mademoiselle.”

Kara nods uncertainly and watches Calixte go, her hand still on the doorknob.  Looking over the new furniture arrangement, undoubtedly orchestrated by Cat, her musings are interrupted by a scent she would recognize even while in a coma, accompanied by a heartbeat she knows all too well.

“Potstickers?” she breathes, turning back to the doorway to gape as Cat sashays into the room, carrying bags of takeout food. 

“I thought we’d eat in tonight while we go over logistics for the week,” Cat explains as she heads to the bistro table and begins to unbag carton after carton of heavenly-smelling Chinese food.  “Hélène, the concierge, assures me these are the best potstickers in town.”

Kara, overwhelmed, nods in autopilot agreement.  “Sounds great,” she says weakly.

\-----

They work late into the night, both of them staving off sleep for as long as possible.  The realities of their situation become clearer and clearer and the bed—the dreaded bed—seems to get larger and larger as time drags on.

Eventually unable to see straight due to exhaustion and knowing she, as Kara’s employer, will have to be the one to call a halt to their workday, Cat snaps her laptop shut on her desk, making Kara jump. 

“We should get some sleep,” she says, carefully keeping her voice as calm and as even as possible, so as not to startle Kara any more than necessary.  The young woman seems as nervous as a hare and twice as skittish.  “You take the bathroom first while I clean up our dinner, all right?”  Cat flashes what she hopes is a bright and confident grin but it feels forced, even to her.

“Okay, Miss Grant,” says Kara, rising.  She grabs a toiletries bag and pajamas from her suitcase and heads to the bathroom, turning at the last minute to add, “Thank you for dinner.”  It hasn’t escaped Kara’s notice that Cat provided a dinner consisting solely of Kara’s favorite food and she’s not sure what to think about that.  Actually, she thinks it’s probably best if she doesn’t think of it at all.

“Well, we have to eat,” Cat replies dismissively and Kara nods again and ducks into the bathroom. 

When Kara emerges twenty minutes later, she is freshly scrubbed and wearing a set of long-sleeved longjohns Cat finds both appropriately modest and hot as hell.

She clears her throat.  “If you haven’t already, you can pick your side while I’m in the bathroom,” she says, and she closes the ebony door behind her with a soft click. 

The silence in the room seems almost oppressive to Kara as she stares at the king bed she will soon be sharing with Cat Grant.  In the end, she chooses the left side simply because it is closest to the room’s exit and she knows she can make a quick getaway if she does something monumentally stupid.

Resigned to her choice, she sighs as she slips under the covers, smoothing them over her lap as she reclines stiffly against the pillows behind her. 

She doesn’t think she’ll get any sleep tonight.

\-----

Cat takes twice as long in the bathroom as she normally would because she knows the moment she walks back into the room sans her usual armor, she will be the most vulnerable she has ever been with Kara, and she is nearly sick with dread.

It’s a moment she won’t be able to turn back from and it will change everything between them.  Cat’s breath comes in short, sharp gasps because she is afraid—afraid of losing stature in Sunny Danvers’ eyes.  Afraid of seeming more human.  Afraid of dropping her masks.

Cat tries to stuff down the insecurity she’s feeling and the worry.  She wishes she’d thought to bring the tiny bottle of bourbon from the honor bar with her into the bathroom, thinking she could use the liquid fortitude.

Eventually she takes a deep breath and tightens the tie on her silk robe, knowing she can’t prolong the inevitable—even if there is a full-sized and very deep bathtub in the ensuite.

She makes her entrance with studied nonchalance, announcing, “Brace yourself, Kiera—you’re about to see the man behind the Max Factor curtain.”

Kara looks up fleetingly, then with awe.  In the halo of golden light from both their bedside lamps, Cat—in floor-length champagne silk and without makeup, with her flaxen, honey hair tousled—is a masterpiece in Kara’s eyes, like the women of John Singer-Sargent, adorned in luminescence.

“You’re beautiful,” she breathes before she can stop her mouth, caught up in the shock of the moment.  She recovers half a second too late, lamely adding, “…in whatever you wear, Miss Grant.”  She looks away before Cat can see too much in her eyes, and then extinguishes her bedside lamp, pulling off her glasses and stowing them on her bedside table.  She faces the door, closes her eyes firmly, and whispers, “Good night.”

Cat gazes at Kara in her embarrassment and discomfort with soft eyes for three full seconds before she forces herself to move and she makes her way to her side of the bed.  She finds the bourbon she’d wished for earlier waiting in a tumbler on her bedside table, alongside the hotel’s notepad and pen, set out in case of inspiration.

Cat knows about the crush—the barely-disguised hero worship Kara has for her—but this is different, somehow.  Or at least, it suddenly seems different in the half-light of a shared hotel room in Geneva, Switzerland, deeper and grander than she’d expected, like the wind-whipped sapphire lake outside their windows.  She takes off her robe and drapes it across the foot of their bed unseen, slipping gingerly between the thousand thread-count Egyptian cotton sheets under the goose-down duvet, and takes a sip or two of the bourbon to steady her nerves.

This truth is something Cat never needed to know.

\-----

Kara waits for Cat to fall asleep for what seems like hours, but in reality is less than thirty minutes.  She listens to Cat’s steady breathing and heartbeat for another thirty minutes before she finally relaxes enough to take a full breath herself. 

Cat Grant, the most amazing and wonderful person Kara knows, is inches away in the same bed.  Kara is drawn to the heat of Cat’s body in a way she absolutely shouldn’t be and she fights the urge to bridge the gap between them and curl around Cat’s warmth, sinking in to it like a luxurious bath.  She tries not to imagine it, tries not to imagine Cat reaching for her in the dark, Cat’s lips on her neck, Cat’s breath catching at the back of her throat. 

Kara doesn’t sleep at all.

As attuned to the sun as she is, she counts the minutes until dawn, lying in bed until an hour before sunrise, and then slips from it unnoticed.  She dresses in the dark and flees into the cold, crisp February morning.

When she returns two hours later and exactly thirty minutes after Cat’s alarm has gone off, it’s with two steaming hot lattes, two perfect croissants, and a brand-new, shiny steel wall around her heart—which she has successfully removed from her sleeve for the first time in what seems like years.

\-----

The Conference keeps them both busy as the bees they are here to save and Cat texts Kara around six to let her know she’s been invited to attend an impromptu dinner with several UN delegates and Kara is free to make her own dinner plans.  Lies are easier via iPhone typepad.

Kara texts back that she's bumped into a reporter from the Daily Planet who knows her cousin and they’re going to dinner, so not to worry.  Her texts don’t stutter and babble, which makes her lies more believable.

The two of them end up wandering the streets of snowy Geneva alone, killing time until they think it will be safe to return to the room.  Kara picks a homey café with a roaring fire and friendly faces, and reads a book she bought at a bookshop two streets over throughout her supper.  She eats four bowls of thick seafood chowder and a loaf of bread all on her own, much to the delight and amusement of the owners. 

Cat finds herself in a tiny bar bedecked with leather and fruit crates and serving the best damned martini she’s had outside Manhattan.  She orders the burger, too, while she’s at it, and chats with the owner about politics and weather.  He compliments her French with a nod of his head and compliments her body with a gleam in his eye, but she isn’t the slightest bit interested in his rustic lumberjack-meets-Kerouac look. 

Kara’s nearness and her devotion are like sandpaper against Cat’s heart, so she’s carted it here, to bathe its wounds in gin and anonymity.  When it’s healed enough—or she’s too drunk to care anymore—she returns to the room.  One lamp still glows and Cat can see the shadow of Kara’s form already tucked in on her own side of the bed. 

“Kiera?” she whispers, but it’s too loud, too harsh.  When she receives no response, she stumbles into the bathroom, kicking off her shoes on the way.

\-----

“Kiera?” Cat whispers and Kara smells the gin on her breath.  Martini-drunk Cat is too mercurial, too unpredictable, and Kara holds her hand over her mouth to keep herself from answering.  After a moment, she hears Cat stumble into the bathroom and the water turns on.  Kara, exhausted, is asleep before Cat slips into the bed.

She wakes again before dawn, dresses in the dark, leaves a bottle of water and three Tylenol on Cat’s bedside table, and flees into the clear morning, looking up at the stars, boots crunching through the snow.  She cannot stop wondering what Cat might have said had she answered her last night. 

She returns to the room at the same time as usual, bearing the same breakfast as before.

Cat grunts her thanks, head aching.

\-----

The Conference heats up a little as some of the big name speakers call for the United States to step up their global climate change contributions.  The controversy keeps Cat running all day and she burns through her hangover in record time.  Several international journalists really do ask Cat to dinner but she declines, having no interest in being picked at for quotes all night.

She enters their darkened room just after seven and is disappointed Kara is nowhere to be found.  Instead, there’s an overflowing basket of goodies and a bottle of wine on their bistro table.  Cat turns on lights and kicks off her shoes as she makes her way toward it, finding and opening the tiny card tucked under the stem of a wine glass.

_Heard about the cock-up with the room.  So sorry.  –NS_

The basket could easily feed a family of four.  Cat opens it and begins to sort it by sweet versus savory foods when the door opens.

“Oh, Miss Grant!  I—I thought you’d be out with the delegates again, or….”

“Not after the day we had,” Cat scoffs.  “My headache this morning was my own fault; I’m not giving anyone else that kind of power over me.”

Kara nods her understanding.  “What’s this?”

Cat grins.  “Nicola’s feeling guilty.  She sent us enough food to feed a small army—which is all they have in Scotland.”  She hands Kara a satsuma.  “It’s enough for dinner.  That is, unless you have plans with your cousin’s friend again?”

Cat attempts to hide the hope bubbling behind her heart with a bored tone, but doesn’t quite manage it.  Kara looks at her askance, and shakes her head.

“No…she—uh—has other plans.” 

The knowledge that Kara had dinner alone with another woman last night sets Cat’s teeth on edge.  The flash of green in her eyes can be mistaken for something else in the light, she tells herself. 

\-----

They spread two towels across the end of their bed and have a picnic dinner.  Cat drinks most of the wine and initiates most of the conversation.  Kara doesn’t mind in the slightest.  The food is plentiful and good, and the wine loosens Cat’s shoulders and her tongue.  She tells Kara scandalous stories about celebrities and sweet stories about Carter growing up and even some suitably charming snippets about Cat’s own childhood that Kara hoards in her heart like a dragon atop its treasure.

Kara shares her own stories of growing up in Midvale with her foster family and skates nimbly around memories of her parents while Cat gazes at her with such softness, Kara feels like she’s drowning.

When dinner is long over and Cat stifles a yawn, Kara volunteers to clean up while giving Cat first shot at the bathroom.  Grateful and sleepy, Cat brushes her fingers over the back of Kara’s hand and Kara feels the touch as sparks in her blood.

“Thank you, darling,” Cat murmurs, yawning a second time as she walks away. 

When Kara emerges from the bathroom minutes later, hurrying through her nighttime routine, Cat is already asleep, snoring softly from the wine.

Kara doesn’t care one bit.  She spends the night remembering Cat’s voice calling her _darling._

\-----

In the middle of the night, a group of revelers returns to their room three doors down, shushing each other loudly and drunkenly until one of them stumbles into the credenza under the mirror in the hall and it crashes to the floor. 

Kara isn’t surprised—she’s heard them coming from the lobby—but Cat starts awake, one icy hand seizing Kara’s forearm in a death grip.

“What was that?” she asks, breathless, her heart pounding with terror in the dark.

“The Australian delegates knocked over the credenza in the hall,” says Kara soothingly, trying to ignore Cat’s hand on her.  If she were any other person, the grip would be painful.  Because she is who she is, it only makes her worry for Cat.  “It’s okay.  You’re safe.”

Cat’s grip loosens but she doesn’t take her hand away. 

“Of course, I am,” she says.  “I’m with you.”  Seconds later, she’s snoring again, and Kara has to hold onto the mattress beneath her to keep herself from flying.

When she wakes up an hour before dawn, Cat is still holding onto her arm, though there’s hardly any pressure now.  Just a gentle presence, a sleeping weight.  Giddy and nervous, Kara lets her fingertips drift softly over the back of Cat’s hand for far too long. 

The sun is almost up when she finally leaves to retrieve their usual breakfast.

\-----

Cat abandons a particularly dry scientific panel at midday and goes in search of Kara, finding her networking with a gaggle of UN ambassadors’ aides.  She watches her assistant work her 'Sunny Danvers' magic for nearly twenty minutes before stealing away.  Hélène told her this morning about a lovely, out-of-the-way café and Cat wants to try it.  She texts Kara when she finds it tucked at the end of a cobblestoned alleyway.

_Bored with my panel.  Ran away to a tiny restaurant called Ma Cousine.  Lunch?_

Kara bites her lip.  It’s the same place she ate dinner the first night and the owners are bound to recognize her.  The name of it gave her the idea for her first successful lie and she’s sure she’ll be caught in it, undoing all her hard work.  She isn’t sure she cares. 

\-----

The owners of Ma Cousine, grinning like Cheshire cats, seat them at the table near the fire and ply the women with wine and good, hearty French food.  Cat and Kara talk for hours and not one second of it is about the Conference or work. 

They walk through town afterward, bundled up in warm coats and boots, ducking into little shops and boutiques along the way.  They end up in an art gallery as the golden sun is setting.  As they walk in silence amongst the paintings, they round a corner to see a massive landscape—birch trees in the Fall.  Cat gasps the instant she sees it and grabs Kara’s hand.

Kara blushes three shades darker than raspberry and doesn’t let go. 

Neither does Cat.

She buys the painting on the spot and they head back to the hotel, their hearts beating like drums.

“You can hear it, can’t you?” Cat asks, looking up at Kara from beneath hooded eyes.  She means her heart but doesn’t want to say the word aloud. 

“Yes,” says Kara simply.  It’s revelation enough.  They both know what they both know.  “I wish you could hear mine,” she adds, because it feels like her heart might burst and she wants Cat to know that, too.

Cat tugs them into a darkened doorway and presses her cold mouth to the burning skin over Kara’s jugular vein, feeling Kara’s pulse leap against her lips. 

Kara cries out and her knees buckle.  She closes her eyes as dizziness washes over her.

“Cat,” she begs.  “Cat….”

“Kara,” Cat replies.

\-----

Alone in their room, together in their bed, Cat watches Kara’s breasts heave with every shuddering breath, the younger woman awash in a halo of golden light.

“Cat,” cries Kara, her head twisting from side to side, perspiration glistening on her bronze skin.  She arches her back and fists the sheets beneath her.  She is the heart of a dying sun, reborn in ice, and she’s never felt like this before.  “Oh, Cat…please…..”

Cat strokes Kara’s hair away from her face.  “I’m here, darling,” she whispers.  “I’m here.”  Her fingers glide and slip and skim through Kara’s wetness and the sensation is overwhelming.  Her heart clangs inside her like a bell and Cat lowers her forehead to Kara’s shoulder, struggling to breathe. 

“In…side…..” Kara breathes and Cat groans with the request, slipping inside her as deep as she can go. 

“Oh, God, Kara,” she gasps. 

Kara gazes at Cat, awed, tears gathering in the corners of her eyes.  “You _are_ beautiful,” she whispers, and Cat kisses her, sweet and deep.

“Look at me,” she says when she pulls away.  They are almost there, the place where nothing will ever be the same.  Cat wonders why she was afraid of it.  She is only coming home.

Kara reaches up and cups Cat’s cheek in her palm.

“I love you so much,” she breathes, looking into jade green eyes. 

Then she is joy aflame and she cries out as she comes around Cat’s fingers….

\-----

When she wakes an hour before dawn, Kara opens her eyes to see Cat watching her, her mouth stained with a smile that doesn’t seem like it can be washed away.

“Hi,” says Kara, her own grin breaking brightly across her face.

“Hi,” says Cat.  She has her head propped in one hand while the fingertips of her other hand draw abstract shapes across Kara’s belly.

“I usually go out to get us coffee about now,” says Kara matter-of-factly.

“I know,” says Cat.  She leans down to trail a golden chain of kisses along Kara’s collar bone.  “You’re not going anywhere today.”

Kara lifts both eyebrows in surprise.  “No?” she asks.

“No,” says Cat.  She flashes Kara a mischievous grin and adds, “We’ll order in.”  She leans in again and takes up where she left off, pressing hot, wet kisses to Kara’s bare skin.

“Good idea,” says Kara, eyes fluttering shut as Cat’s lips close around one already-pebbling nipple.  “After all, what did the hotel manager say?” she asks, voice high and breathy and needful. 

Cat grins.  “Our stay is at the pleasure of the Hotel de la Paix.”

“It’s at _someone’s_ pleasure, that’s for sure,” says Kara and she turns abruptly, lowering Cat to the bed.  She parts Cat’s long, lithe legs and settles herself between them.  “I’ll send them a heartfelt thank you note when we get back to National City.”

“A thank you note?” asks Cat, arching up into Kara’s eager mouth.  “Why don’t we just buy the place and be done with it?”

Kara rears back, surprised.  “You want to buy this hotel?” she asks.  “Why?”

Cat smirks.  “I like keepsakes, but I’m not the lock-of-hair type.  Besides, do you even cut your hair?  Is it possible?”

Kara laughs.  “It’s possible but not necessary.”  She settles back between Cat’s legs and adds, “What do you even need a keepsake for?  Keep _me_.”

“Oh, I intend to, Kara Danvers,” Cat replies.  “I intend to.”

\-----

**_fin_ **


End file.
